John’s Blog

When I began this blog two months ago it was for the purpose of exposing flawed thinking in my immediate surroundings, that is, the US.

I had not anticipated readership in other places on the planet.

Being unable to sleep last night because of this, I wondered if I should moderate my ‘rant’ to consider whether there are “relative” truths and “absolute” truths. My intention was not to turn my writing into philosophy but to the exposition of major decisions that are based on inaccurate or insufficient data.

More than fifty years ago I read a significant book, “An Introduction to Scientific Research” by E. Bright Wilson. In it he gave various examples of flawed conclusions.

One of my favorites was:

“The results of the experiment were inconclusive.
One chicken died, one chicken lived but the third got away.”

This is an excellent book if a person is truly interested in searching for truth.
I consider my books to be friends and this is a lost friend. My advice is do not loan out significant books. They seldom come home.

Back to the point.

By posting my articles I have found that, through the comments that have been offerred by others, my mind has collided with some truly great thinkers from around the world.
This has caused me to consider ideologies other than those which apply directly to me.
I have avoided political and religious issues because the bases of these cannot be proven therefore I leave them untouched.

It is obvious that when parents compare their children they can say, “My son is taller than your son.” That is easily provable.

However, when one says, “My son is more intelligent than yours”, that is not so easily proven. The first child may bring a report card home from school covered with “A’s” while the other only achieves “C’s”.

It would appear that the first child is the more intelligent but his grades may have been achieved by sheer persistence or even possibly by favoritism by the teacher.

The latter child may be bored with the material being presented and so ignores it. Instead he may be shaping in his mind the destiny of his country or the entire planet.

No one wants to be wrong. It is an unpleasant feeling.

Whenever a person changes direction it implies that he had originally made poor choices, that is, he has admitted that he had acted on wrong or insufficient information.

I responded with a comment on another Blog with regard to meditation. (http://www.writtenvoice.com)

“What is static has proven itself to be safe. When we move, we move into uncertain territory. This causes if not fear, apprehension.

The mind is satisfied with its present state. It too feels safe and rejects change.
Meditation brings about change and this is why many people have difficulty meditating. The mind will not let them. The mind is afraid of change because it will no longer be the same mind. It takes on a new identity.”

So change can imply that previously held views were incorrect.

My earlier postings stressed making decisions based not on opinion but on fact. However, opinions must come first. Without an opinion a person simply accepts the “status quo”. They do not look for alternatives therefore they cannot determine the truth.

The truth is tested by the scientific method-cause and effect.

Neither political, economic nor religious systems can be compared as there is no possibility of evaluating them.

If one asks which is the better system they have to ask, “Better for the individual, the country or the planet?”

This opens the argument again to opinion.

How is “better” defined?

This post will be followed soon with another that considers more of a “world view” than my personal experience.

Most of the candidates have been in a position to do something about all the problems in our country.
They all say that they have ideas of how to fix things.
Why haven’t they done it before?
They have had the opportunity.
They have all been getting a fat paycheck though.

 I’m a bit disillusioned with the process.

This supports my commentary regarding traces of lead in paint on toys coming in from China.
(Please see my previous post, “Toys and Lead”)

I have just read an article that appeared January 22nd, on NEWSMAX HEALTH.

I feel that it is important to spread this information because many home remedies from Latin American countries and India use incredibly high levels of lead in their preparation.
The CDC reported 12 cases of lead poisoning in 2004 from using ayurvedic remedies in Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and California.

High levels of lead have been found in ayurvedic medicines, which are used in India and in South Asian immigrant communities in New York, Chicago and Houston. These medicines include ghasard, a brown powder given to relieve constipation in babies, and mahayogaraj gugullu, for high blood pressure.

Lead poisoning can cause lethargy, confusion, learning problems and convulsions. Too much lead can cause irreversible brain damage and death.

The article stated:
“Traditional medicines may account for up to 30 percent of all childhood lead poisoning cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates 240,000 U.S. children were diagnosed with high blood lead levels in 2004 to 2006.”

“Mexican remedies such as greta, azarcon and rueda - powders that are given to treat constipation in children and contain as much as 90 percent lead. In New York City and Rhode Island, high lead levels in the blood have been tied to litargirio, a powder containing up to 79 percent lead. It is used by Dominican immigrants for such ills as foot fungus and body odor.”

“In Harris County, which includes Houston, traditional medicines are blamed for nearly one-fifth of all cases in which children were found to have high levels of lead. In Arizona, home remedies account for one-fourth of childhood lead poisoning cases.”

How many high lead level cases are not reported if the child doesn’t become ill enough for the parents to become aware that it is their home medication that is causing problems?
If there are minute traces of lead in paint on toys, I wondered when I wrote the previous article, how many toys that have minute traces of lead in their paint must a child eat to cause the levels of lead absorbed and detected?
My point is that before we make drastic and costly decisions we should not make assumptions. The scientific approach of ‘cause and effect’ seems to have been forgotten recently. Opinion and emotion seems to prevail over solid scientific fact.

This is a good time to talk about polls and their effect on the politics that shapes the lives of us poor pawns. It was about two months ago that I heard something on TV that made me wonder about the average person on the street. Remember, the average person is the one who votes and his or her vote will put people in office with similar traits.
People choose either friends or politicians who think as they do.

I have to paraphrase the incident because I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time to record the actual words. We tend not to take notice until we realize that something of interest is taking place.

Anyway, the interviewer was stopping people on the street and asking them if they were for or against repeal of the 1975 (or some date) Bill of Income Adjustment.
He stated that most were for the repeal. What’s interesting is that there was no such bill!

Where I am going with this is that if one were to take a poll as to what the most important task for the new president would be, it would be a very different answer depending on where the poll was taken.
In Arizona, it might be border security. In Detroit it would be jobs. In New England it might be the economy. In San Francisco it might be the legalization of marijuana.
If the pollster takes his poll regarding war at a college he will find a much greater percentage of people against war. Why? These young people would be the ones required to carry the rifle.

How the question is asked also alters the answer.
Certainly the restrictive nature of the question, whether a “yes or no” answer is expected, when there is no clear answer possible to the question.
For instance, “Sir, do you still kick your dog when you get home from work every day?”

Everyone wants to be associated with a winner and unfortunately the polls can create winners.
We are seeing this effect at the present time with funding for some of the Presidential candidates drying up.
If polls are taken in specific regions that favor one candidate over another, people will shift their allegiance to the perceived winner.
This has been going on since primitive cultures formed and will continue forever.

For years my skeptical nature has caused me to ask, “Who’s telling you what and why?”

Beware how the pollster asks his questions and where he asks them for they can significantly influence the outcome of an election.

The pawns pay the price.

I am reading a very interesting book edited by Robert Cowley, “What if?: The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been“.
It is an anthology of essays that look into historic events which would have had drastic consequences for the way we live today if some small event had not happened.

Ignoring the entire point of the book I have noticed that throughout history, wars have depleted the treasuries of the countries involved. If one country had more disposable gold than another, it usually won.

When both treasuries became empty a truce usually ended the fighting.
Often a country would attempt to borrow money from another country without success which caused the conflict to end. It was an interesting case of international politics and financing.

The world is a different place today. Perhaps the real reason that the Soviet Union collapsed was not because of Ronald Reagan but because it ran out of money.

This I don’t know with any certainty but it is probable.

Being a Korean War veteran I took the following oath:

“I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC…SO HELP ME GOD.”

I still feel that way. I want my readers to be absolutely sure of my views regarding our military-past and present.

I am in favor of whatever it takes to preserve the United States and our way of life but I wonder who we will go to when we run out of money.

Not only are we dealing with the cost of the war itself but we are shipping our money by the bucketfuls to people who don’t have our best interests at heart and who may be stockpiling it to finance their war against us.

What if?